Erik Akers

So did you learn any­thing from last night elec­tion? No, no I’m not talk­ing about any­thing polit­i­cal or the win­ners or losers.

If you can’t think of any­thing, think about this. Some­one that almost no one knew 21 months ago was just elected to the high office in the land. Just how did it hap­pen? Great mar­ket­ing, great design and con­sis­tency, con­sis­tency and more con­sis­tency. Just think if more would fol­low a plan that looks to sim­ple to work, who knows what any­one could accomplish.

This morn­ing AdAge.com posted a very good arti­cle about how Obama shifted the mar­ket­ing of a nor­mal cam­paign and made his oppo­nents have to catch up to him and thus chang­ing their talk­ing points away from their strengths.

It goes on to talk about how every­one thinks they need a really clever slo­gan present their com­pany with, which then leads to slo­gans that have an unclear mes­sage or because one didn’t work it’s quickly changed thus cre­at­ing no con­sis­tency because cus­tomers don’t know who or what they are.

Sim­plic­ity and Con­sis­tency, two sim­ple things that most over looked because it’s thought that if you aren’t really clever you will not be noticed. But when you really think about most of the really great logos and adver­tis­ing that is mem­o­rable it’s so sim­ple that makes you say, “Why didn’t I think of that?”

Bot­tom line is don’t over think things. Don’t fall for the trap of think­ing the best ideas are the most com­plex ones. A lot of the time the best idea is some­thing as sim­ple as “Change”.